Lucifer silently walked down the dark corridor, his mind automatically draining itself of all emotion as he walked towards the burning light at the end of the tunnel. How many times had he walked like this into a cheering arena before? How many times had he walked into the glare of light, shirtless, covered in wounds, two short swords in his hands? How many times had he emerged, bathed in blood? Surprisingly enough, he remembered walking out of the arena more times than he remembered walking into it. Almost like he only really awakened from his tired sleep after he'd painted his body red with blood in battle.
Lucifer finally stepped out of the tunnel and into the blaze of lights as the arena exploded into boos, jeers, and insults. His 51 challengers already stood at the other end, menacingly evaluating him as he walked with his hands in his pockets, his hair swaying as it covered his eyes, the sand of the arena's floor barely disturbed under his feet as he approached.
Lucifer ignored the audience; he knew it would be hard to control himself if he allowed his eyes to waver toward those animals as they sat in their stands. Yet despite himself, he could feel that old, horribly familiar drunken rage build up in his mind once again after all these years. It was like his mind was splitting in two; one of pure fighting instinct, one of of pure hatred...and glee.
He stopped walking, standing across the giant group of challengers coldly staring him down the wide expanse of the arena. He scanned them swiftly, but his eyes were suddenly they were caught by the huge sign board that hung on the far end of the wall, right under the VIP seats in the stands. He registered the silhouette of one single person with wild hair sitting in exclusive seats in the shadows, silently looking at him, but he ignored it for now, allowing his eyes to instead shift to the humongous board with large kanji drawn over the wood.
"Hall of Hell?" read Lucifer unbelievingly, his hate starting to vibrate in his pumping blood.
"That's right." said Haruto from the front of the Divine group as silence fell over the arena. "This is the only hall where First-Years are first allowed to compete in SK. It used to be, you could only duel for your expulsion back in the day, so, this was the 'Hell' that they had to crawl out of to become Divines. Only those who can escape the unruly filth of this underworld could hope to reach the Silver Gardens."
Lucifer raised his eyebrows for a second, and Haruto responded with a smug smile.
Suddenly, Lucifer broke into a laugh. He couldn't help it. At first, it was just a low laugh, almost like a chuckle, but the more he laughed the louder it got. Sakura's hands ripped into the chair at her seat in the stands; his aura was breaking out even more. A raging dragon of darkness was being born right in front of her. It was as if his laughter was fueling it...or was it the other way around?
His mirthless laughter boomed across the arena for a second, resonating with the very bones of everyone present making them horribly uncomfortable at the demonic sound...and then he suddenly stopped. An ominous silence hung over the crowd as Lucifer spoke again. "Hall of Hell?" he asked incredulously, his black eyes glinting over his wide smile. "You Divines think you know hell? You think you know demons?" He laughed again. "This isn't Hell, this is a protected little bubble for pompous students." His eyes gleamed with hatred again and all laughter evaporated from his face. "You can't really have Hell without its King." he whispered. "And Lucifer has just arrived. Today, I will show you what Hell truly means! Today, you will bow before the King of this arena as I make it into your worst nightmare!"
It was a horrible feeling. Sakura saw all 51 Divines nervously shift on their feet; there was a certain maniacal power Lucifer was emanating. She had never seen him like that; he was always calm, but this time, something had brought him to the very edge for some reason. She saw with horror, that a smile of enjoyment spread over his lips as he saw the Divines squirm in front of him.
A resounding gong loudly clanged in the distance, marking the start of the duel...yet no one moved. Lucifer hungrily stared at the group in the distance, inviting them to make their first move, his confident smile smirking at them in challenge.
Haruto clenched his fists. Standing across from Lucifer in battle, he suddenly realized how nervous he was. "Everyone listen up." he said to the Divine group. "We ALL hit him with our most powerful spells at the same time. There's no way ANYTHING'S gonna survive that. This duel will be over before it even starts."
Lucifer's grin widened as his usual easiness enveloped him. "You could do that." he said, his voice quite calm yet his black eyes glimmering. "But if you did, who would take the credit for it? Who was the one who beat the Demon? 'ALL' of you?" he smirked.
The Divines looked at him for a second, then turned to Haruto. "He's right." said a thin third-year. "Why the fuck are we even listening to this young dumbass kid? I'm your senior, I'll be taking command now. All of you, stay back, and I'll take on the Demon myself."
"Shut your trap, James." said another third-year. "You really think I'd listen to a fucking dipshit like you. I will take command. All of you line up and we-"
A second year student laughed loudly. "Please, our dear old senpais, please shut up. You're the weak failures of your year. Don't try and act mighty with us. It's our group that'll-"
"What was that!?"
"No, no. Stop. What're you all doing!? The match has already begun!" muttered Sakura in panic as she saw Lucifer lazily raise his hand in front of himself, a Demonic black disc glowing on his palm as he charged his spell to attack the oblivious group. "LOOK OUT!" she shouted.
And a thunderous screech left Lucifer's palm. A pure beam of energy, almost silently, rammed the entire group of Divines in a second, literally washing away all their vision and noise as it suddenly covered them all at once. Like an ominous bullet train, it had hit the entire group at once, swallowing that half of the battle area in a thick slab of night. For a moment, Sakura saw nothing but an enormous black blaze in front of her...unlike anything she had seen before. Unlike all the spells she had practiced with, fire or water, or any other elemental magic, it didn't flow or weave like it was alive....this black magic just simply existed in pure energy; frozen in air.
And then, suddenly, it completely vanished as the spell ended and Lucifer lowered his hand. Sakura's eyes widened with alarm as light was allowed entry once more and she could see what the spell had done.
"Damn, I didn't hold back enough." muttered Lucifer, surveying the damage his spell had dealt to the enemy force. He'd felt only a few shields be put up JUST in time before his spell had hit, but even he hadn't expected this many Divines to be hit. Only eleven students were still left standing, their shields cracked and flickering, barely holding up.
A horrible silence hung over the audience. "Forty - forty opponents...with one spell?" "Did - Did...he just take out FORTY people with a single spell?" "What was that beam?" "ONE SPELL!? He took out all of them with just a flick of his wrist!?" "How strong ARE Demons?" "Just how powerful is HE!?"